


Osmosis

by TheDarkFlygon



Series: The Agenda [8]
Category: Caduceus | Trauma Center Series
Genre: Best Friends, Birthday Party, Comfort No Hurt, Families of Choice, Gen, Light-Hearted, Sibling Love, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23031541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkFlygon/pseuds/TheDarkFlygon
Summary: If you combine Leslie's keen eye, Tyler's creativity and Angie's devotion, you can put together a very nice evening.Add in Amy, and you've just made it even better.
Relationships: Amy Chase & Tyler Chase, Derek Stiles/Angela "Angie" Thompson, Tyler Chase & Leslie Sears & Derek Stiles & Angela "Angie" Thompson
Series: The Agenda [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1628578
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Osmosis

**Author's Note:**

> I figured it was a crime that Leslie wasn't featured in the Agendaverse yet, so this serves as her entry story AND as a way for me to finally write Derek having a good time. It's not often that he can breathe in peace in my writing lmao. But, tonight, he can!  
> I whipped this up to get me out of a TC funk, so I hope it's okay. It sure... has nothing to do with finishing Earth Never Stops. No drama, no sickness, nothing. I don't even mention 6-4 directly!  
> also hi emmy i'm stealing your "mono fancy word" titles i hope you won't mind

There are a lot of little and bigger things Leslie notices wherever she goes. They’re usually enough to draw some conclusions from, albeit they can be difficult to put together in one coherent picture sometimes.

One of the most complex jigsaw puzzles Caduceus has given her is about one of her workmates. Ironically, it’s one of the few people in the premise who seems to be the most open book of them all, the one who always speaks his mind and who cannot lie to save his skin in any circumstance. Who’d have thought this bright-eyed guy would have given her more trouble guessing what he was hiding from everyone? Certainly not her.

Well, that’s what Leslie would have said, but she knows there’s always more than one layer to any given human being.

As always, the pieces fall into place observation by observation. One of the first is the constant face of disgust Derek tries to hide whenever Angie or she mention the menstrual cycle – something she admits to have, at first, attributed to another trait altogether. She may have been proved wrong there, but that didn’t make her admit defeat altogether. It was merely a mistake in the process of solving the puzzle at hand. The one thing which allowed her to correct her misconception was the expression Angie would put on whenever the topic rose up _and_ Derek was in hearing range. This occurrence needed both elements to be in place and only started happening after they had come back from Europe. Suspicious indeed.

This detail wasn’t enough, of course, so Leslie continued her silent investigation. She once saw Derek almost enter the wrong bathroom on accident, almost out of a habit, before shaking his head and correcting his trajectory (even though he could have, in a hurry, just not paid attention to the door’s signs). Another time, he almost said something else instead of his own name during a late-night conversation (although it could have been nothing more than a stutter from sleep deprivation). The final bandage of the procedure may have, however, been when he accidentally dropped in a conversation that he may have worn pigtails, before stuttering and correcting it as him having had long hair when he was a boy.

Well, technically, it wasn’t a lie, right?

Her suspicions become facts when a bright-eyed Tyler once pulls her into his office, closing the door behind them. Angie is already sitting on the sofa, legs crossed, a cup of coffee in her hands.

“Okay, girls, I brought us together for something very important; but you gotta promise me it’ll stay a secret between us. Is that okay with you two?”

“Of course,” Leslie replies with a smirk.

“It depends on what it is. If it’s anything illegal, I may have to tell someone about it.”

“Angie, we ain’t here to sell drugs… We’re here to throw Derek a party, that’s _not_ illegal as far as I know!”

“Oh, I see!” Her face becomes more doubtful merely a moment later. “Wait, a party for what? Derek’s birthday isn’t until November. We’re in _July_.”

“Well, huh… It’s kinda difficult to explain what,” Tyler’s face suddenly takes on a shade of red. “But it’s a thing we used to celebrate every year when we were in med school. We stopped because we parted away for a little while, but since we’re finally reunited, I really want to resume that tradition. Are you both on board?”

“I am,” Angie continues asking, “but only if you tell us exactly what it’s for.”

“…it’s for his official name change.”

Tyler’s voice has dropped his cheerfulness, exchanging it for a solemn and serious tone with an expression to boot. Angie audibly gulps as soon as she registers what he’s been meaning all along.

“Derek’s very awkward about that, so I only wanted people who knew to be aware of the true intentions of the party. We’d usually say we were celebrating when we first met… and may have just spent an evening eating pizza and playing video games. I want it to be a real celebration, now. So, if you’d just… not mention the incriminating part, girls, we’d be all good.”

He turns towards Leslie, looking nothing less than suspicious… until that fades, giving way to a much more familiar knowing grin.

“Not that you didn’t know already, do you?”

“Well, after you put the pieces together… I wasn’t too sure, but this confirms what I thought. I’m certain this means a lot to him, so we need to piece everything together in secret.”

With a bright smile, Tyler nods and looks at both girls again, hands on his hips.

“So, you both with me?”

“Of course!” Angie replies with enthusiasm, rising her fist up.

“Count me in”, Leslie replies more calmly, albeit not out of disinterest.

This promises to be an interesting day at Caduceus to say the least.

* * *

On the day of their little surprise party, the three of them find each other in Tyler’s place. It’s a fairly spacious flat for two, as Amy likes to have her own room in her brother’s home. At first, Leslie expected her friend to have helped his sister find herself a slumber party to attend at a friend of hers; instead, she does get surprised to see this energic girl busy in the kitchen. Did Tyler change his plans about getting pizzas? Maybe, maybe not. There’s joy in not knowing until the last minute, sometimes.

She’s a bit afraid that Angie may feel like a third wheel while Tyler and she take care of things they’ve slightly hidden from her. As much as they trust her, she tends to spew secrets out if she gets nervous and getting interrogated by Derek sounds like the safest way for their plans to get ruined. To her relief, she sees her colleague help Amy out in the kitchen.

“Wait, there’s something that’s bothering me,” Angie suddenly says as she did the dishes.

“What is it?” Leslie asks from across the rooms, putting the plates on the table.

“Won’t Derek suspect something? If you celebrated that every year, he must know what’s coming, right?”

“Oh, he does, how do you think I convinced him to come over otherwise?” Tyler replies. “He just doesn’t know you two are here,” he winks, “that’s the surprise.”

“I… I see. I hope your impression is right.”

“It’s _always_ on-point, Angie.”

The rest of the preparations go in a flash as, soon enough, Tyler gets a call from their guest. He rushes to the door, asking them in a hurried hush to hide wherever they can, as he puts on his best innocent mask and welcomes his friend into his flat. The cheerful tone almost perfectly hides his true intents and the fact there’s more than he lets on.

“W-wait, why is there _five_ plates?” Derek suddenly asks as he gets near the table, right as Amy tries muffling a giggle.

That’s the moment Angie and Leslie both choose to get out from under the table, careful as not to hit their heads. The surprise displayed on their friend’s face is priceless and worth the trouble (if trouble helping Tyler was, it was more of a pleasure than a chore if she’s entirely honest), so they all laugh together like it’s a cheesy sitcom.

“So, pal, do you remember what today marks?” Tyler then asks as they sit down, handing a leaflet of the available pizzas to everyone but him.

“Wait, why is there _five_ plates, if there’s only _four_ of us?” Derek asks back instead, eyeing the empty spot next to Tyler.

“That’s mine!” The joyful voice of Amy resonates in the main room as the girl runs to her chair, smiling from ear to ear.

“Now that your question’s answered, what about you give me an answer to mine?”

“Oh, right, sorry, I… I got distracted.” Derek looks up, eyes fluttering towards the ceiling as he crosses his arms. “Hmm… It’s not anyone’s birthday as far as I know…”

After some hesitation, his face takes on another colour.

“Oh, right, there’s _that_ too! But, huh… Ah…”

From what she’s getting, he’s trying to avoid her glance, so Leslie chimes in.

“Don’t worry, I think I know.” No throwing Tyler under the bus, of course. “Besides, even if I didn’t, I’d have nonetheless wanted to celebrate an important day for a friend.”

“Well, huh… Thanks a lot, then! It’s a… bit awkward that you know that without me telling you, but it does make things easier for me, I gotta admit…!”

The red creeping on Derek’s cheeks, the way his eyes darted all around the room, the way he scratched the back of his head: she could see what Angie found so cute in him and yet never truly admit to herself. Sparing a glance at her friend, she could see a blonde girl with a warm smile and a bit of pink appearing on her own face. One day… One day they’ll realize what’s actually happening to them… and she sure hopes Tyler and she will be on the first row to see the spectacle, that day. Actually, they better be: trying to matchmake those two has been harder than it looks.

They eventually place their orders as they chatter about work, then about miscellaneous things because Amy is sitting with them and it’s not fair to make her isolated by default. Truth be told, the conversation has nothing to do with the reason which has technically brought them all in this place at this precise time; but nobody minds, especially not their birthday boy. He seems more than content _not_ talking about it, in fact. Just as Tyler has described to her so far once he guessed she had had the right suspicion. Amy’s smile and interventions are more than worth not talking about work too.

After a few other topics, Angie gets tired of seeing the empty and dirty plates, getting up from her chair with the dishes to wash them. Derek and Leslie are both quick to follow, but the former is retained by both Tyler and his sister. “You’re the star of the show, we’re not gonna have you do the dishes, are we?”. He gets back into his chair, Leslie goes to lend a hand. It doesn’t take them a lot of time, but it’s done already so it won’t have to be done later. They quickly see Amy retrieve something from the fridge with a wide smile, not unlike her brother’s when his source of joy isn’t based on pranks.

They all go back to sit down, Amy making sure she’s hiding something from her neighbour. Tyler clears his throat as he rises his glass to the ceiling, grinning.

“Nine years ago, pal,” he glances directly at Derek, whose embarrassment is more than obvious from his face alone, “you finally got to not explain to every prof why your name wasn’t the one on the rollcall! I know we didn’t get to celebrate that milestone for a couple years, but that’s why we’re celebrating tonight, to what you did in the past and for your bright future that, I sure hope so, will have us on the ride!”

His friend doesn’t exactly quite know what to reply, looking aside as he furiously scratches the back of his head. Tyler then glances at his two other workmates, earning a nod from the both of them, and finally glances at his sister.

“Amy, what about you show us the crowning jewel of the evening?”

The girl responds with a large nod and goes to pick up what she’s hidden next to her, hands full of impatience. She stares right at Derek, whose embarrassment has given stead to a mix between bliss and confusion.

“My brother told me it was your birthday, so I made you a cake!”

Sure enough – and Angie’s proud gaze is more than enough proof of it – it’s the dessert she’s helped Amy prepare earlier: a crêpe cake covered in icing with a candle on top of it. Tyler quickly lights it up with a match.

“B-birthday?!” Derek seems to suddenly realize why they’d have chosen this word over anything else. “W-well, seen like that, I guess it works out nicely…”

He’s tearing up with a smile, quickly blowing on the candle.

“Are… Are you okay, Derek?” Angie asks looking over her neighbour’s shoulder.

“I… I don’t know what to say!” He says as he takes off his glasses to dry the water in his eyes. “I… Thank you so much, guys!”

“Don’t sweat it. You did save the world, dude. You deserve more than just a pizza and a cake, even if my sis’s baking is also worth the world.”

Angie puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Tyler’s right. You’ve deserved it, Derek. We’re glad to have met you.”

“Then, guys, what about we celebrate over a nice slice of cake?” Leslie asks, already getting up with the knife she’s picked up earlier in her hands.

They’ve really found each other, haven’t they?


End file.
